How Rome Fed A Million People (Before Modern Farming) | Life in Ancient Times

Feeding Rome was an enormous task, and one of the most important sources of energy, calories, came from bread. So it was fundamental for Rome to have a steady supply of grain, and when Rome got to have a population of a million, well then that grain came from all over the empire. It came from North Africa primarily, but also Sicily, Sardinia, the Black Sea. I'm in an ancient bakery, and who runs this establishment in antiquity? The pistores, and they do the milling, and they do the baking, and this is quite a large bakery that we have in Ostia Antica. Right across the way is the enormous podium, so you have probably a place where the grain was stored. It was a natural place then across the street to place a bakery. So you came here with the grain, you dumped on the top of this mill composed of two components of this very resistant volcanic stone that comes from Orvieto, and you have it balanced on a single spindle, and you'd push along. Originally there's a pole out here. You were a slave. You were a donkey. It was a miserable existence, and you did it right here day in and day out, and there are tons of these millstones around here. So this is a very large establishment, and ultimately at the bottom comes out the flour, and in another room we have a series of mixing bowls. So you're going to be mixing the flour with the water, and you're going to have it leavened for these loaves, and then ultimately in the back there is a wood-burning oven, and then pull them out for sale. So this is where you came every day to pick up a loaf of bread because most people didn't have a wood-burning oven in their homes. Most people in Ostia didn't even have a kitchen, so they're coming out daily to establishments like this to get food, and one of the fundamental places in the Roman cities is the bakery. But just how similar is contemporary bread with that of ancient times? I head to a local bakery to find out. Laura, you're a bread expert. You're the bread guru. You've written cookbooks. You travel the world doing consulting. What do you think about the fact that the ancient Romans, their most common food consumed every day was bread? Well, you know what? I'm not surprised. It's still the same. I mean, things haven't changed. Okay, maybe we eat a little less than we did, say, 80 years ago, but it's still the foundation of the Italian table. Nine Italians out of 10 go out every day. They go to a local bakery and buy some bread. It's the center of our diet. Now, the Romans used different kinds of grain. We know they used spelt and wheat and millet and barley. What about when we make bread today in Italy? You know what? Once again, there's a red thread that connects us to the Romans with the grains that we use for bread. So you mentioned emmer, spelt. We use those. Emmer is a progenitor of all modern wheat and einkorn, too. These are ancient grains. They date back thousands of years. And then we have old varieties of wheat that date back hundreds of years. And we have hundreds of these varieties, both for bread wheat and durum wheat. Think about durum wheat. In Sicily, only more than 50 old varieties. And this is a treasure trove for us Italians. It's our pride and glory. It's our gold. We have seed vaults and seed banks. It's our mission to preserve them. We're so fortunate that we have whole, carbonized loaves of bread from Pompeii, from Herculaneum. We even have those loaves of bread depicted in Roman art. Yes, and that's why I brought you here in the heart of ancient Rome, on one of the seven hills of Rome, at the bakery of my friend Sergio's, to make one of those ancient Roman loaves. Let's do it. Okay, so now we have all the ingredients in the bowl. We have the emmer flour, salt water, and our leavening agent, a sourdough starter, ready, right? So a leaven. We're mixing it, not aggressively though, because it's emmer, so gentle. You want to be gentle. We're going to let it rise for two hours. And then Marco is here, he's a baker here, and he's tying it the way that Romans would have tied it. And then all we need to do is bake and eat. How cool is that? So ancient Rome, the most populous city in antiquity, was ever dependent on grain imports from all over the empire. And this staple was enjoyed by all in the city, also part of the Annona, the grain dole. Bread remains a staple worldwide, and Italy continues the Roman tradition of fresh baked bread daily. Buon appetito! Back to ancient Rome, it was a complex endeavor to bring grain to the capital. There was a lot of infrastructure in place. Rome had to be assured that the ships were coming in with the grain every year, otherwise the people of Rome would starve. You had to have the farming industry regulated, the shipping industry, then of course you're storing it, and ultimately you distribute it to your citizens. It's an enormous enterprise, and all surrounding the industry, the production of grain, and then the production of bread. The Romans had a welfare system in place, which involved the distribution of grain freely to its citizens. It was called the Annona, and a lot of that regulation of the grain to be distributed to the citizens of Rome took place here in Ostia Antica. It was a fundamental city for Rome because it was the port city of Rome. So you have a very complex network of farming, shipping, and storing, and distributing the grain to the citizens. I asked my colleague, archaeologist Benedetta Bessi, what she thinks about Ostia Antica. Ostia was very important, so were the other port cities like Pozzuoli, because they guaranteed the arrival of the grain on a regular basis. Navigation back in the days was only seasonal, and they would have the grain shipped and crossing the Mediterranean from spring to fall. And the rest of the time, Ostia played a major role with the storerooms for the grain to be destined to Rome. So let's take a look at one of the warehouses, one of the Horia structures of Ostia. Here we have a Horium, a warehouse, and this is one of my favorites. It's so well preserved. What you have is an enormous open space, then surrounded by a portico lined with dozens and dozens of rooms, two stories. So what you have then is the porters come and bring the goods, the sacks of grain, the amphorae. Putting them here in the center, where they would be counted, cataloged, registered, and then stored in individual spaces, individual rooms, later to be brought out again and loaded up into ships to be towed upriver to Rome. An incredibly complicated, laborious enterprise, but necessary for feeding Rome. And this one is so well preserved, and we're so fortunate that we actually know the name of the individual, Hortensius, who was its sponsor. Let's take a look at another association, and this one is really important. This is the hall and adjacent temple of the mensores. They are public accountants charged with counting the sacks of grain brought into the warehouses. The standard is the dry modius bucket, holding about 15 pounds. Here we see a porter carrying a sack of grain, a youth who is counting the sacks, and the mensore himself, who is measuring the grain with the modius bucket and a stick. The modius and the stick were frequent symbols of their work. Now, back in Rome. Where are we? Well, we're outside the city walls in ancient times, and those roads leading into the city were lined with tombs. Of course, it becomes even more crowded with aqueducts. We have the big one here of the aqua claudia that crowds in the space, now a hub for buses and trams. But there's one tomb in particular I want to bring your attention to, and it is the tomb of Marcus Vergilius Yersakis, and the name implies that he is at least originally Greek. We don't know if he's a freed man. We don't know if he's a freed citizen. He doesn't tell us, but we're told in his inscription of his tomb that he's a pistor and redemptor, so he's a baker and he is a contractor, and there's a narrative priest at the top of his tomb that tells his business, which is making bread. So the grain arrives. The grain is ground up by mills, pushed by donkeys, and then you have the flour. The flour is worked and kneaded into loaves, and they're going to be baked in an oven and ultimately weighed out. This is a person who becomes wealthy. He has a very prominent tomb at the intersection of two roads, and even the tomb itself is unique. The tomb itself is attractive. It's different, and maybe because of those silo-looking structures and the bowl-like structures, it's referring to the activities in his bakery. There was one found down the street. Maybe it was his. He is a prominent individual, and he shows you how he made his money making bread for Rome.